A homeowner's questions about a supposedly "generator ready" house prompted warnings about an electrical setup that could put utility workers at risk.
The buyer, who lives in a hurricane-prone area, had hoped the connection would provide backup power during outages. But despite a thorough home inspection, they could not find equipment meant to keep generator power from feeding back into utility lines.
Here's what to know
Breakers labeled "GENN" appeared in each of the home's two garage panels, according to the homeowner's post on Reddit's r/AskElectricians community. The panels sat just inside the garage, behind an exterior 30-amp power inlet.
The homeowner could not find a transfer switch or interlock, raising concerns about whether the connection was safe to use.
"It was my understanding that a power inlet should have a transfer switch or or an interlock, or something to avoid backfilling power from the generator out to the street and injuring a utility worker," they wrote. "Is my understanding correct?"
A properly configured interlock keeps the main breaker and generator breaker from being on together, a commenter explained.
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More background
The homeowner described the inspection as thorough, noting that the inspector was known as "the deal killer." No concerns about the generator hookup had been raised by the electricians who worked around the panels during a remodel.
The homeowner reported just one exterior inlet and believed it supplied both sets of generator breakers. Commenters questioned how a single inlet could serve two panels, in addition to their concerns about the missing safety equipment. A commenter urged the buyer to have the wiring traced rather than assume the arrangement was safe.
The inlet's exposed prongs could become live if someone turned on the generator breakers, one commenter warned. No generator would need to be connected for that danger to arise. Another commenter raised a separate risk to the generator and household electrical equipment: damage if utility power returned while both supplies were connected.
What can be done?
The homeowner said the GENN breakers had remained off since they moved in. After reading the responses, they planned to have an electrician examine the hookup during an already scheduled visit to install light fixtures.
One commenter advised that correcting the setup would first require tracing both generator circuits to establish how they were connected.
The homeowner knew of no manual transfer switch elsewhere, but mentioned an unexplained blank plate above the breaker box in response to a commenter's question about that possibility.
One commenter directly challenged another user's suggestion that carefully operating the breakers could replace an interlock, writing, "Please don't listen to this person. Back feed literally kills people. You need a generator switch."
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